There was a loud horn, presumably indicating the start of the race, and a device on the dashboard lit up.

I held my breath, and I hit the gas. The whole truck lurched. Donut yowled as her claws dug into my shoulder. I had to sit really low in the seat to see out the front because of the goddamned gun thing on the roof. Ahead, several opponents zoomed off at the sound of the horn.

The panel on the dash gave a few beeps. It was a navigation system of some sort. It was a square box with the words Navitron 1000 over it. A map appeared on the flat-screen but minimized itself, and then words popped up, speaking in my head like it was an item description, but the words also spoke out loud into the cabin of the truck.

This was a distinctly female, strangely familiar voice I couldn’t place:

Heat number one of seven.

Driver: Carl.

Navigator: The Champion of Nekhebit, Harbinger of Doom, Assassin of the Great and Feral Sekhmet, Princess Donut, She Who Is Foretold to Bring the Gnashing of the Teeth and the Woe of All Who Harbor Hope and Is Known as the Oak Fell to Those Who Dare Utter Her Name.

Distance: 53 kilometers.

Track: Asphalt-paved road. Mostly flat.

Tasks required to complete: Just get to the finish line.

Environment: The Caves of the Screeching Death Manatees.

Hazards: Not yet discovered, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the Screeching Death Manatees might be a problem.

Time Limit: 6 hours.

Current ranking: Unknown. Upgrade me to get real-time ranking updates.

It was pitch-black out. I scrambled to find the headlights. I found them and pulled the knob, but nothing happened.

“Carl, do you see what that thing is calling me!”

“Light! I need light,” I yelled.

Donut waved her paw, almost casually, and the entire area in front of us lit up brilliantly with her Torch spell.

Only some of the vehicles ahead had lights. One—already way off in the distance—was clearly a muscle car of some sort, but it was either a convertible or it had the roof ripped off. I could see two tall shapes in the thing before it disappeared. Right behind it was a fuzzy, four-legged bearlike creature that loped at breakneck speed. Yet another bug-like creature skittered, right on their tail. A minivan that made me think of Louis rumbled off.

Something jumped over us and evaporated into the darkness, melding into the shadows. I didn’t get a good view, but Donut hissed, “Dog.”

We tore over the checkered starting line, passing by what appeared to be a giant tumbleweed.

The strange round bush just sat there, unmoving in the middle of the wide road. The prickly thing was tall—just as tall as our truck—and it was a round tangle of weeds and brambles. I did a double take. Sticking straight out the center of the entire mess was the head of a goddamned unicorn. A unicorn ripped straight from a little kid’s Lisa Frank notebook. All I could see was the head, but it was a white horse with a rainbow-hued mane, which looked as if it had just been brushed. A horn that glittered like an opalescent seashell rose from the thing’s head. The head was about the size of a regular horse, and it stuck out the top center of the tumbleweed as if it were wearing the brambles like a coat. I couldn’t tell what the hell I was looking at. The unicorn’s head appeared way too high for it to be standing on the ground.

Some sort of pinkish red fuzzy rodent sat on the head of the unicorn, but I couldn’t tell what it was in the dark. The unicorn started shouting something at us, but my window was rolled up, and I couldn’t hear.

“I only saw six opponents,” I called, trying to look into the side mirror before realizing there were no side mirrors. “Donut, how many did you count!”

We knew at least one was behind us, assuming the unicorn tumbleweed was an opponent.

“I can’t see anything!” she shouted.

Ahead, the road was just a straight black highway with no markings. Despite the brightness of Donut’s spell, I couldn’t see anything on either side except random sickly-looking trees. There was an occasional glitter, implying there was water out there.

I tried to look at my minimap, but I received an error.

Your minimap is disabled while you are moving.

The GPS did have a map. But it was just a mostly straight line with no other features.

“It says we’re supposed to be in a cave,” I said. I could clearly see stars out the windshield.

The GPS didn’t answer or react.

I had the accelerator pressed all the way down, and we were moving about 70 miles per hour, which translated to about 112 kilometers per hour. The heavy truck didn’t seem to want to accelerate past that. I couldn’t see anyone in front of us at all. At this rate, we’d hit the finish line in just about twenty-five minutes if we didn’t stop.

Donut unleashed Mongo into the passenger’s side and jumped to his back. The dinosaur screeched in fear at appearing in such closed quarters. He waved his wings, smacking me in the face, causing me to swerve.

“Careful!” I shouted. Mongo’s tail feathers reached all the way to the back of the long truck. He let out another fearful screech.

“It’s okay, Mongo,” Donut said. “Mommy needs you as a seat so I can look outside for bad guys.”

Mongo peeped again, but this time it had a different tone. I knew that tone.

“Don’t let Mongo puke on the dashboard!” I yelled.

Mongo puked on the dashboard.

We hadn’t had a break. We’d gone straight from the frantic chaos of the end of the ninth floor to our lawyers to this without a rest. I had dozens of boxes to open. Achievements to go over. A fan box. An impossible god quest that was about to come to a head. Friends to check on. War mages to worry about. An Agatha problem.

Lucia Mar, who somehow had over 100,000 kids in her head. I didn’t even know if she was still here.

It was too much.

For the moment, I ignored it all and pretended like I was driving. Just driving and nothing more. Not racing for our lives, though even that part was strangely okay. It was so absurdly normal compared to the army-sized fights of the last floor that I felt a strange calm come over me. There was comfort in this straightforward anxiety. This danger—at least for the moment—was just between myself and Donut.

Right now, if I made a mistake, I would die. Donut would die. And that’s it.

There was not a thing I could do at this very moment that would result in the death of thousands, and I could have cried at the relief I felt.

But I knew. I knew that feeling was both temporary and false.

Slam, slam, slam.

No. Don’t think of that.

But how could I not? How many times now in just the past five minutes had Donut wiped her paw on something? How hard was I trying to ignore it?

Slam, slam, slam.

Peace to you all, Justice Light had said. How? How?

But then I thought of Katia, finally free. I remembered those who’d taken deals. Of that moment when they’d rained streamers and flowers on me and Donut, all of us pretending to ignore how much was at stake.

There was hope. There was escape. And if not, as Justice Light had shown, as all those who’d come to our aid on the previous floor had shown, there was also the possibility of vengeance.

But first, we had to survive this goddamned tenth floor.

I mentally counted the opponents again.

The muscle car. The bear. The bug. The minivan. The dog. The tumbleweed.

I was missing a few of them. Nine teams. I didn’t know if they’d zoomed out ahead of the muscle car, or if they’d been like us and were still stuck in their garage when all this started.

It was already clear we weren’t going to be winning this heat. What had Zev said? First place got to pick three upgrades. Whoever won would immediately have an advantage. We certainly couldn’t afford to lose, but from the sounds of it, second-to-last place would be almost as bad. We couldn’t afford to let the viewers pick our upgrades, either. The viewers were all dicks.

Something loomed up ahead, but still in the distance. Something dark. I glanced at the GPS again, and nothing had changed.

“Donut?” I asked.

“I see it,” she said. “It’s the entrance to a cave. It’s very big. I see movement, but I’m not sure what.”

A new message came in. One I instinctually read before I could push it away.

Prepotente: Carl, Donut, everyone else, I come with a warning. Obviously you do not want to come in last place. But do not, I repeat, do not kill or otherwise prevent any of your opponents from crossing the finish line. In fact, I suggest you help any wayward stragglers should one have already fallen.

Donut: HI, PREPOTENTE! WHAT DID YOU PICK?

Prepotente: I went with the obvious choice, and I chose biological. One would have to be an imbecile to have picked mechanical.

I exchanged a sour look with Donut as I gave the other messages a glance. From what I gathered, Zhang—who was with Li Na—was the only other one who’d picked biological. Elle and Imani had picked mechanical. Chris, who had been in Li Na’s party but had apparently left near the end of the previous floor, had also picked mechanical, as had Louis, Britney, and Bautista, who were all together.

Florin hadn’t yet answered what his choice was, though it sounded like it was just him and Lucia Mar—who, as predicted, had not taken a deal—which likely meant Lucia had been the one to choose. I’d thought that Jurgen was also in their party, but he was somehow now paired up with Prepotente.

Carl: What happens if not everybody finishes the race?

Prepotente: While I don’t know for certain quite yet, I strongly believe that the pool of opponents for each heat is set in stone. That means if only one opponent falls during the current heat, then that will be fine. However, if two or more fall during the heat, there won’t be enough for the next race. As a result they will have to mix and match with other groups that are missing a full heat.

I felt cold, and the moment he said it, I knew he was right.

For this first race, all eight of our opponents were NPCs.

Carl: Goddamnit. I think you’re right.

Prepotente: Quite. If you kill more than one opponent, then it’s possible the next heat will have an opponent team consisting of fellow crawlers. By the end, I fear there will be multiple crawler-versus-crawler races, possibly races where all the opponents are crawler teams.

Elle: Well, that’s just fucking peachy.

Imani: We can avoid this if we keep all our opponents alive. Avoid killing those you’re racing against.

Zhang: Shit. Guys . . . Na already⁠—

“Carl, watch out!” Donut called.

Just inside the mouth of the cave, the minivan was on its side, flaming, blocking the road. A bugbear was crawling away from the wreckage as another one of the vehicles—a bus-sized ladybug—squealed in pain as it was dragged off the road by the biggest manatee I’d ever seen. One of the riders of the bug ran away from the scene, screaming.

I couldn’t tell what manner of creature the bug rider was because the rider was on fire. But it didn’t matter because a second later, the house-sized manatee crunched down on the bug, killing it, and the on-fire creature had a notification appear over it for just a second before it exploded much the same way Waldrip Chris the gremlin had.